Jack's Car and NFL Week 3

 

When I was a little kid I lived on the outskirts of Philadelphia.  The early 1970s was, in many respects, one of the last gasps of identifiable culture while still stubbornly holding onto wildly outdated and stupid ideas.  While you might have had retro cool bell bottoms and fuzzy extended guitar solos, you also had backward facing station wagon seats, no seatbelts, and about 40% of adults chain smoking cigarettes in cars and airplanes.  All the clothes were ugly, the shoes were bad, food was shitty, and we had a VW Beetle.  It's one of those eras that if you lived in it, you can remember that it sounded more like Barbara Streisand and Mac Davis than Lynyrd Skynard for normal kids subjected to their Mom's radio station.  Maybe if you're in your forties you have a similar feeling about the 1990s.  Everyone will retroactively conjure up that everyone was into Nirvana in 1994, but for most people that time was all about Ace of Base and Mariah Carey.

Anyway, I was a little kid and I had a babysitter named Doreen.  She had a boyfriend named Jack who had a pony tail and mustache.  I thought he looked like he was an adult in his 20s, but he was probably 17.  Who the fuck knows.  They were both pretty nice, and they would play with me until putting me to bed slightly past when I was supposed to go, likely their way of showing me they weren't beholden to "The Man".  Of course in this case "The Man" was my housewife mother and her paper salesperson husband who were not that much older than those two, but I appreciate the gesture in "fighting the power".  I assume Jack came over in the hopes that Doreen would play with his dick on our couch after I went to sleep.  I didn't know that then, but no hard feelings now Jack. 

Jack had some domestic atrocity of a car, one of the sea of horrific looking automobiles available to an underemployed young man at that time.  It was like a used Oldsmobile or Dodge Duster and it smelled like cigarettes and burned plastic.  I remember sitting in the back seat when Doreen and Jack took me to the mall and I just slid across the plastic interior whenever we made a turn.  It's not like anyone thought about seatbelts.  Doreen was wearing a scarf on her head in that hippie style with hip hugging jeans.  Jack had one of those cowboy flannel pattern shirts on that Bob Weir lived in for most of the 70s.  I got some kudos because I correctly identified "American Pie" on the radio as "the Chevy to the levee song" despite having no idea what a "levee" was.  They made me ride one of those little trains in the mall courtyard and I wanted no part of it.  I was really concerned about looking uncool, which is odd considering I was probably six years old and wearing a polyester shirt with a grape Kool-Aid stain on it.  Yet, I remember being embarrassed being on the train.   

I might be merging that day with another day in my head, but when we got back to the house some young guy came up the driveway.  I recognized him as the legendary "Keith Kunick", an older high school kid that had totaled an astounding number of cars either because he couldn't drive or was always super fucked up and consequently couldn't drive.  He was a bit of a celebrity to us younger kids as he was viewed like a local Evel Kneivel in how often he had miraculously escaped serious harm despite the mangled cars in his parent's driveway.  There were multiple fucked up cars on the driveway, and in retrospect the Kunicks were probably hillbillies that just couldn't bear the idea of junking out Keith's various mishaps.  Super impressive to a six year old though.  It was sort of like having a TV actor come strolling up your driveway.  I played it cool, and by "played it cool" I mean stood there silently staring like a psychopath.  

Keith had come to see if he could borrow Jack's car.  It blew my mind that Jack knew Keith as worlds collided.  Doreen was not in favor of this idea as Keith was clearly a fuck-up, and she strongly advised Jack against turning over his keys right in front of Keith, but Jack seemed to be swayed by Keith's rock solid argument of "C'mon man!  It's just for an hour.".  As I think about it now, Jack was obviously concerned about the youth culture idea of being anti-materialism and seeming like he wasn't part of the counterculture, but he also knew the risk in giving your keys to Keith Kunick.  Doreen went off in a huff when Jack gave Keith his keys, and then I went back to doing whatever a little kid does.  I got sent off to bed after my traditional dinner of an Armor Hot Dog (I got into this rut of only eating that for about a year) as the sun started to set.  There was tension between those two as I went upstairs as Keith was still AWOL and it was well past the agreed upon hour.  

When I woke up in the morning my babysitting team was gone.  I couldn't have cared less about how the drama had turned out.  I was six.  It was a normal morning of Lucky Charms, cartoons, and my Mom smoking cigarettes in the kitchen.  Later that day I was in my Mom's VW sitting up front as she drove us to do some errand.  We passed the Kunick's house.  In the front yard was Jack's car.  The entire front of the car had been bent like an accordian.  This was undeniable testimony that someone (Keith) had been driving this car too fast and too recklessly.  Fucking Keith Kunick had done it again.  I wish I could track down the principals of this story to find out if my memory is correct and what the outcome was, but my gut instinct is that Keith is long dead.  I don't know Doreen or Jack's last name and there isn't anyone around to ask what it might be.  The one thing I did learn was you need to trust your gut when a Keith Kunick comes over talking shit.

I've heard a lot of shit talk this week about how the Chargers may go 0-9 to start the season.  Refresh my memory, but weren't America's pundits focused on how the Chargers were going to be a playoff team this year two weeks ago?  I get that maybe emotions were running hot on the Chargers from being some sort of sleeper AFC champ, but 0-9?  This seems like a perfect flat spot for Buffalo, a team that loves to play down to the level of their competition.  I am going to use the Chargers in a teaser leg to take.them to +13.5.  I am not on board with the idea of the Bills defense being "all that".  Let's be honest, the Chargers need a monster effort this week.  In the NFL, teams are never as good or bad as they seem.  Gimme the Chargers with a ton of points.  No one believes the Chargers will ever win again.  Now is the time to buy.

Speaking of "buy low" teams, let's talk Pittsburgh.  It's been a week of talking how terrible Aaron Rodgers looks.  Look, I agree.  The guy looks like how I would imagine I would look out there despite the fact he's a world class athlete and I hurt myself on my coffee table.  He's got that "Johnny Unitas as a Charger" look to him only old guys like myself can fully appreciate.  Here's my thinking...  Divisional games with a home underdog are always worth a look.  Pittsburgh has an elite defense.  They also can't score and presumably won't score a bunch this Sunday.  Points will be at a premium.  I'll take the under 48.5 in a teaser leg.  The only way I get smoked here is defensive or special teams touchdowns.

I am taking Seattle over Washington.  The Commanders must be bummed as Daniels is obviously very talented but he's also a skinny brittle dude.  Marcus Mariota is... well... he's 2026 Marcus Mariota.  Mariota is 3-10 in his last 13 starts.  I cannot fathom a world in which Marcus Mariota defeats the Seahawks defense.  If Mariota is going to win games, it will be against teams like the Giants, Falcons and Cardinals.  He ain't beating the Seahawks.  Let's tease this down to Seattle -1.5.

Combine all these into combinations:  Chargers +13.5/Pittsburgh Under 48.5/Seattle -1.5  

I think the Jags are good and the Patriots might have that Super Bowl hangover.  New England had maybe the most favorable schedule and playoff setup in modern NFL history.  Drake Maye looks like he's taken a step back.  Vrabel can't be unaffected by the ditzy NFL reporter affair going public.  AJ Brown was supposed to be the fix on the receiving corps.  I'm out on these guys on big road games.  They seem like they are going to be one of those 9-8 sort of teams fighting to get into the playoffs around Xmas.  The Jags seem legit to me.  Give me Jacksonville at home in some sweaty ass Panhandle weather.  Patriots are injured and in a bad spot.  If the Patriots are going to lose 8 games, this is one of them.  Jacksonville -2.5 

Philadelphia is one of these teams where EVERYONE is pissed off after the game.  Eagle fans, despite winning the game, are motherfucking the players and coaches because the team seems to be underperforming despite winning.  The fans that just watched their team lose to the Eagles is pissed because they lost but it seemed like they maybe should have won.  News flash... Winning ugly is still winning.  The Bears are either starting Case Keenum who hasn't played a game in two years or the guy from the Mining college that has a concussion.  You ain't beating the Eagles with that.  Chicago has too much major media market smoke being blown around.  I'll take the good team that is healthy.  Philadelphia -3.5. 

Season Record:  2-3

Vive La France and NFL Week 2

 

It had been a couple weeks here in France for me.  Through much of the trip, there have been "local fixers", friends which have helped make the inevitable language and cultural gaps much easier to navigate.  I came to France for the first time about 20-25 years ago, pre-smart phone and Google maps.  There's nothing like trying to find a train station when if you somehow communicate what you are looking for, you then get stampeded with a bunch of gibberish you can't understand.  I could know the words in French to the question I wanted to ask, but my American accent made it almost impossible for anyone to know what I was trying to say.  Try finding a rental car return at a train station when the only word you know for sure in French is "Gare".  Soon you'd have a crowd of people gathered around you all speculating on what was going on.  "What does he want?  He is saying something about the police and a piece of cheese.  It makes no sense.  Perhaps he is a local village idiot from the place he comes from?"

I've met some great people and drank some really good wines on this visit.  It ain't easy for these folks these days.  These are artisan producers in very trying conditions trying to build upon generational family businesses.  The current economic climate, pointlessly derailed by our nation's dementia dictator, is making it hard on anyone not in the Inner Grift Circle.  There are winemakers in the Rhone Valley that are doing backbreaking agricultural work on steep slopes, just roasting in the sun, only to find their American importers are dropping them.  The importers cannot find the path to sell wines which had been $65 only a year or two ago, now thanks to tariffs, are $100+ on American shelves.  In many cases the producers just sell their small quantities elsewhere, but it depends on the winery.  Our modern Court of Versailles in DC has absolutely no idea or interest in how most of the industries they are crippling actually work.  In the case of the wine industry, the simplistic thought would be "wine is wine, so if we make European or Australian wine more expensive through taxes, people will buy American wine instead."  This line of thinking would be logical as long as you don't know a fucking thing about how the business you're jacking around actually works.  This, of course, is the modus operandi of the idiots we put in charge of our country.   

Here's why this tariff shit is so stupid with wine...  All wine is not the same, just like cheeses are different.  For example, the idiots in Washington saying "if we make Parmesan cheese shockingly expensive, that means people will just use Kraft singles on their chicken parmesan recipes.  USA!  USA!  USA!"  Wine from Cote Rotie is different than wine from Marlborough NZ which is different than wine from Chianti.  All the government is doing is shooting us in the foot by limiting available flavors to consumers.  But let's say that magically everyone decided to embrace only American wine in this country.  The problem is that winemakers import the bottles, closures, barrels for aging, and various dry goods from European suppliers to make their wine.  We don't make any of that shit here.  Now that you have taxed those supplies, American wine costs more too due to increased production costs, which further shrinks demand.  On top of that, there are a bunch of small American businesses that import European wine that now face huge hurdles to stay in business, which would be comparable to shit like eyeglass frames, construction lumber, car parts, etc etc etc.  With wine you can also factor in the absolutely stupid Canadian trade war which has led Canada to blackball American wine entirely. For Napa cabernet producers, this can reflect 40-50% of their overall business.  Why "normal" Americans cannot understand that they elected a reality TV star that pretends to be a business expert instead of a demonstrably incapable buffoon remains baffling.  

It just sort of sucks to walk around when you leave the country and have everyone else know what a bunch of clowns we have become.  It's not some sort of debate where people ask, "What the fuck are you guys doing over there?".  It's more like that quiet "let's not bring up that embarrassing thing going on" normally reserved for school children that wet their pants or people with kids that are in the news for sex crimes.  It's been a long couple years where you just can't keep track of the latest horrifying news or wonder why great swaths of the population can't seem to engage with reality at all.  I can tell you because I've seen it...  There is a better way.  While it's not like France doesn't have all sorts of their own issues, at least the pace is more reasonable, the food is better, and you don't see ugly families in enormous SUVs driving around with hate message bumper stickers.  Well... not at least that I can read fluently.

I bought a weekly streaming package for the NFL here.  I watched some NFL as the early games went off at 7pm.  It's actually ideal, as long as you don't want to watch the late game kicking off at 2:15am.  The Browns, as expected, looked like the worst team in the league, but otherwise it's hard to make sense of what is going on.  Typically the first month is when you can maybe figure out if Atlanta is as bad as they appear (I think they are) or if the Chargers might be sorta shitty (I have no clue).  That's why this week I am going to venture out on some games where I feel like the teams are as advertised.  Who is who we think they are in this Wilderness Of Mirrors?

I am still of the opinion that the Texans are good.  Sure, they lost a close game to Buffalo, but after Buffalo handled the Lions last night it seems like Buffalo is legit.  There's no shame in losing a game to the Best Regular Season QB In Football, aka Josh Allen.  That vaunted Texans defense certainly has some questions swirling around it now, but let's still assume that they are top tier.  The Texans have the Bengals at home this week.  Joe Burrow is already hurt with "back tightness".  All I know is if I have "back tightness", I might not be excited to try and throw a football 40 yards and get hit by giant angry men.  I'm not buying into the narrative of Cincinnati as an elite team.  They beat the Bucs at home last week by one score and Tampa had four fumbles.  Tampa is one of those "who is the least shitty team?" in the NFC South where someone will back into the playoff spot in Dec.  It could be them, New Orleans or Carolina.  Who cares?  Houston is better than Tampa and is giving less than a FG.  I'm back on Houston -2.5.  

Speaking of Tampa, there aren't going to be too many more chances to bet against Deshaun Watson, and this is one of them.  Seize it.  I cannot understand why the Browns keep pretending that Watson played well and the team is in capable hands.  I'm all for the willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to watching a Star Wars film or whatever, but not when I'm stuck watching a guy that has provided no evidence that he can still compete at this level.  Meanwhile on the other side of this game is Baker Mayfield, one of the last grudge carrying big game players around.  While the potential for Mayfield to toss a brutal back breaking INT is always there, I think he really wants to give a "fuck you" to the Browns owner and front office here.  This is such an obvious pick, there has to be something wrong here.  This is where the NFL can jam you up, where the team that looked absolutely amateur and flat comes out the next week playing with their ass on fire due to embarrassment suffered the week prior.  This is the Browns though and they are fucking terrible.  Tampa is 4-15 ATS in their last 19 games, so I am paying the freight and going Tampa money line.  

The Panthers are better than the Falcons.  The Falcons have Stefanski and Cooper Rush.  How the hell can you overcome that?  The Falcons were 2/12 on third down conversions, threw for 118 yards/two INTs, and in typical Stefanski coached team fashion made 9 penalties last week.  I didn't watch to see if Stefanski had a press conference where he said they would "clean things up", but I'm sure he did.  The Panthers hung in with the Bears for three quarters, and the Bears are much, much better than the Steelers.  I am committed to betting against the Falcons until they have someone that can play NFL QB or the spread gets too big to ignore.  Carolina -2.5  

Season record:  1-1

  

  

Playing The Angles and NFL Week 1 2026

 

I was upsold at the restaurant.  I knew what was happening but the social contract which bound us all had me trapped into compliance to order a bottle of wine that was $50 more than I had budgeted.  The server had asked me what I wanted to spend, and what I was looking for as far as region.  He excitedly promised to return with a myriad of options in this price range, but instead came back with two options 50% over what we discussed.  I was getting played.  I knew I was getting played.  I bought it anyway, exhausted from the potential effort of the spar and parry to come from trying to get what I had asked for.  Later at a different establishment, I was given a glass of cheap cotes du rhone when I had ordered a St. Joseph.  I knew the waiter fucked me just to save the restaurant on margins.  They must have laughed about it after the shift.  Fuckers.  Such is life in the Big City.

History has shown that large city service employees exist strictly to try and rip off anyone that wanders into their sphere not knowing all the angles.  I think the entire city of Venice was built on scamming tourists in the 1600s, but that might have just been something that I read.  Roman peasants must have been fleeced when they were trying to buy a t-shirt of their favorite gladiator when they ventured to the Coliseum.  "Flavius the Brave shirts!  One denarius here!  Three inside!  Same Quality!"  Two days later some little shepherd kid is all bummed out when his Flavius shirt falls apart after his Mom bashed it with a rock in the river giving it a wash.  A story as old as time itself.

Yet, I think there is no other choice than to lean into getting scammed, within reason of course.  This is how the economies of these places work.  If the taxi driver doesn't pad the fare, the waiter jack up the check, and the hotel charging mystery fees, the entire infrastructure will crumble.  What are the shifty eyed African young men going to do if they can't loiter around train stations looking for wounded gazelle?  Everyone has their place in this economy regardless of what the AI Doomseeker Techno Bro cult guys have to say.  

The key is to see and understand the angles.  Then you must accept it.  For example, when buying a car at a dealership, assume you are getting fucked.  Just know and accept that going in.  The car dealer didn't get his place in Naples and his private jet by giving people fare exchange for money.  I know a guy that was the GM of a Nissan dealership that made $1.2 million in a year, and he didn't even own the place!  It's interesting as I have never met anyone that didn't say that they got a "great deal" with their most recent automobile purchase.  While it is good for people's sense of worth, this is self delusional.  I get it though.  It's tough to walk around and say, "Yes, I did get a new car.  Boy did I get fucked on my trade in though!  Whew!  I helped that dealer make his quarterly nut, that I'll tell ya!  I hope he put in a new kitchen in his winter place.". 

With this NFL season, my expectation is to take an early asskicking as everything I know is probably wrong.  What I'd like to do this opening week is to focus in on betting counter narratives to what is the accepted logic.  For example, we are all programmed to believe the Buffalo Bills will be really good because they have been good for so long.  It also follows that as it is a QB's league, having Josh Allen on your team means you can't possibly lose.  Well, until the playoffs that is...  I am assuming that this must be the reason why Buffalo is a favorite over the Texans on the road.  My understanding is that the Texans will have a motherfucker of a defense again, and unlike last year where their offensive weapons were all out, they are healthy.  Houston beat them last year and in 2024.  Why not again?  Houston +1.5

For the record, I have no idea if the Steelers are any good.  They have that roster profile of name players on the back end of their careers that tends to end badly.  However, they can't be any healthier than they are right now when they open up against the Falcons.  This isn't so much a bet ON the Steelers, but a bet AGAINST the Falcons.  I watched Stefanski for years.  He has the worst ATS margin of any veteran coach.  He's especially bad when he has a limited QB, just like he does right now with Tua.  I have seen Stefanski lose over and over and over to Pittsburgh.  We'll see how big a deal it is to not have Tomlin.  Pittsburgh -3.5.